


You Hang From My Lips

by CBlue



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Body Worship, Episode: s15e18 Despair, Episode: s15e20 Carry On, I Don't Even Know, Introspection, It's sort of Blasphemy, M/M, Non-Explicit Sex, POV Second Person, The CW Christianity as I call it, These aren't real tags, also references to Goodbye Stranger since I'm That Girl, but only specifically to the show's very specific religion, literally??? symbolically at least
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-12
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-18 22:13:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29989581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CBlue/pseuds/CBlue
Summary: But God made humanity this way, didn’t he? Made them hungry. He wanted them to be hungry. What sort of father wants his children to starve? God, apparently. So when you were too hollow to be overtaken by hunger, you were just becoming what He wanted. Apparently.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 8
Kudos: 22





	You Hang From My Lips

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this all in one go with Grammarly as my SPAG beta. These are free-floating thoughts that just... came out. I just keep _feeling_ things and it's all Dean Winchester's fault. Come yell at me over [@corancoranthemagicalman on Tumblr 💙💚](https://corancoranthemagicalman.tumblr.com/)
> 
> And, of course, the title comes from _Cowboy Like Me_ from Taylor "True Heller" Swift. I was very tempted to use something from _Take Me To Church_ but I didn't want to be _that_ cliched ;)

You can’t touch him unless his blood is coating your hands.

Maybe it’s because your unholy hands could never touch something so divine unless bathed in its blood. Like red wine cleansing the body’s sins. You’ve heard wine is good for that. Some God-follower interpreted it and some doctor agreed with it.

Maybe it’s because all you know how to do is hurt. Your touch is poison and it drags him down, _down_ , **_down_**. Until there’s nothing left of that burning star but a husk.

You drag him down and you can’t even catch him unless he’s bleeding. Unless you’re holding his body together with your bare hands. That is when your skin can grace his vessel - _his body_. That is when you are allowed to touch this divine _thing_.

It’s not a reverent touch. It’s terrifying. It’s shaking and aching and _wanting_. Always wanting.

Once upon a time, an old entity told you that you never hungered because you were so damn empty inside. If that Famine could see you now. See how damn _empty_ you are now. Not because you don’t hunger, but because all you _do_ is hunger.

You’re starving. It’s not from lack of wanting. _God_ , all you do is _want_ , but you want things you can’t have. Want things you _shouldn’t_ have.

It’s not too different from Adam, is it? Not that you’re even sure that’s how the story goes anymore. He never hungered though, on those Bible Sundays you can remember. He didn’t hunger until Eve walked into his life and showed him what it was to _want_. Then all he wanted was to appease her, to stand by her, to feed himself on forbidden knowledge until God struck humanity for its hubris.

But God made humanity this way, didn’t he? Made them hungry. He _wanted_ them to be hungry. What sort of father wants his children to starve? God, apparently. So when you were too hollow to be overtaken by hunger, you were just becoming what He wanted. Apparently.

 _Apparently_.

But your stomach is eating itself, it’s so hungry. So destructive. Your body wanting to consume your flesh until there is nothing left of you because it’s so hungry. It’s so hungry to reach out and touch and consume and you can’t feed it unless his blood is on your hands.

You’re tired of starving, but you don’t want him to bleed any more than he has for you. He bleeds too damn much for you. You sometimes wonder if that’s the only love you will ever know; a heart coated in blood sacrificed on your altar.

You feel _something_ from it. Like a pagan god. That this holy creature should kneel before your high-built stone walls and parapets and offer his flesh and blood for you. He burns his incense and it smells like honey. His eyes glow with rapture and you feel yourself succumbing and you want to reach out and touch but it’s only when his porcelain face is ruined - painted with your own damnation in the form of his blood.

Why is he always bleeding?

You want to touch him. You can’t touch him. Not unless your hands are caked in his blood and you’re crying his name. He is the sacrifice and the god all at once. His body beneath your knife and his name on your lips. The only thing you have ever prayed to and yet every damnable time he is out of reach unless he is made real by spilling his bread and wine across the stone floor of your heart.

Touch him. You want to. His blood is bright red as an apple skin. His wings are the shadow of a tree. If Chuck is such an excellent writer, why has he not dangled this temptation before you? Or does he save those ministrations for Lucifer? Now _he_ has held this holy thing’s neck beneath his cruel hand. _Lucifer_ can hold this divine being beneath his tainted palm without his blood coating twisted hands. How can your touch be more damning than that of the _Devil_?

You want to touch him. You are breathless and undone. His blood is on you. You wonder if it's a cruel irony that this last time that he has touched you he is coated in his own blood. Why does he have to be bleeding for you to touch? Suns and moons align with less blood spilled between them, but when it comes to _this_ heavenly body, crimson has to spill for you to touch him.

The floor is so cold and you see him smile sadly as this last sacrifice to your altar is laid before you. There is a prayer. There are tears and blood and an _Empty_ that eats away at you. Fills you up until you’re starving and alone in the coldest room of what once was your sanctuary. What once was _his_ sanctuary. Though now you are left to wonder if it was never this place but _you_ that he found that shelter in.

Oh, _God_ , all you have left is wonder and _hunger_. You’re starving and it aches so much that the ringing in your ears might be the phone in your hand or it might be his words ringing, _ringing,_ **_ringing_** **.** Why couldn’t you reach out to him?

You drop the phone. You look at your palms. They’re clean. His blood isn’t anywhere to be seen other than marking a familiar place on your shoulder. _Oh_ , you think, _that’s why_. That’s why you couldn’t touch him. His blood isn’t coating your hands. His body hasn’t spilled so that you could break that unspoken barrier.

No more blood. No more blood on your hands. Not after he gave that final prayer. Not even _God_ \- **_no_ ** \- the _man_ who made all of this happen can sacrifice his blood to you. Not even when he is at your feet, quivering and begging for that mercy. You have been made a benevolent god for your disciple. All the worship you had received asked you to _love_. And you will. You will love. There will be no mercy granted to this quivering once-god, but you can grant the prayer of the only thing you have ever worshipped.

So you tell him, _no I won’t._ _That’s not who I am_ , because the one true disciple who worshipped at your altar _knew_ what sort of god you were. You are a god of blood and _love_. And your love is bloody and your blood is lovely. But not for this echo of a man who used to be worshipped in bedtime prayers. No, now your prayers take the form of goodbye kisses pressed to your child’s forehead.

There is no blood to feed your hunger, but there is love. In this, you are satiated. You are a god made satisfied by a true sacrifice of blood and love. You are a man without purpose now that your brother is protected in the arms of someone who loves him and your son is made God. He has renewed the rain and you hear his laugh in the thunder despite how much you miss him.

The altar you once worshipped has been lost to you. Instead, you pray to the raindrops and the thunder. You pray to the oven that feeds your family. You pray to the echo of the only thing divine that has ever touched you in a way that is _healing_.

You are not empty. You are no longer starving. You miss him in the rain and in the sun. The same way the builders must have missed Babylon after their own hubris left their altar of knowledge in destruction. You miss him and it aches but the roaring pagan god has had his fill of blood and love and you feel like a ghost haunting a broken altar some days, but some days you are content to miss him. Miss him and remember what it was like to be loved with blood on your hands.

There is a thunderstorm and you hear your son’s laughter in its reverberations. You feel the heavy door to your sanctuary open and the only worship you have ever known sounds like your name from the lips of your most divine follower. Your heart stutters and breaks before the altar of the angel of Thursday. You fall to your knees and you are touched by divinity. You are blessed and your hands - free of his blood - reach up to touch his porcelain skin.

There is your boon. The boon to your most devout follower. It is your heart placed into his hands. His palms tremble from where they cradle your face and you place your heart at his altar and pray his name.

 _Castiel_ , you cry. _Castiel_. And you pour out your devotion in supplication there on your knees and you ache in a way that has never been possible for you before. You are so _full_. Your divine love kneels to meet you and you both fall apart. You break each other’s altars until you rebuild a new one from the rubble. New pulpits and parapets and organs. It is an altar made for blood and love.

You are touching him. You are touching him and your hands aren’t covered in his blood. It’s a miracle. A blessing given to you by this god whose temple you writhe beneath as you grant him entry into your sanctuary. You touch him. _God_ , you _touch him_. And you are gods of blood and love and _touch_. It is tender worship he grants you. Gifts you.

You remember a crypt. Being at your knees. Begging. Begging him to return to you. This is what happens. This is where you pour yourself over him and he crumbles beneath you. You are a god of blood and love and you pour your blood over him and you fulfill him with your love until you are certain he can never starve. You feed him the bread of your body and the wine of your blood and he returns each blessing with your name like a prayer.

The sun is warm and the blankets are long forgotten when you wake up. He lays beside you. Your equal. Your god and your disciple. He is the altar of your worship and the prayers you receive. You kiss his skin and you _touch him_. His blood is nowhere to be seen.

His eyes open and it’s a sky of _blue_ that you drown in. Drown yourself into the sea of divine love and worship. His smile is gummy and wonderful and you offer as much. Your words burn like incense against his skin and his hands return to you like a devout man looking for religion in the quietest pew.

You can touch him as long as his love is coating your hands.


End file.
